1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to network communications. In particular, the present invention relates to systems and methods for automatically generating network cookies that may be used by network sites to customize services.
2. The Prior State of the Art
The world has greatly benefited by computer networks such as the Internet that allow individuals to access services such as electronic mail, Web site navigation, chat room participation, and instant messaging. Computer systems that offer services are called “servers” while computer systems that obtain services are called “clients.” One frequent type of requested service is the downloading of a Web page from a Web site.
When a client sends a request for a service, the server may often like to customize the service using information relevant to the client. For example, if the server offers a weather forecasting Web page, the server might like to know the geographical location of the client so that the Web page might be customized to show the weather forecast for the client's geographical location. The server may find out this information by simply having the user enter the desired information. For example, when navigating to a Web page using a Web browser, the client may display a log-on page that allows the user to enter desired information such as name, address, preferences, and the like in identified fields. Upon logging in, the server would then be able to use this information to customize services.
Requiring that the user enter this information every time they request a service from a network site can be quite cumbersome to the client. Therefore, servers often cause “cookies” to be stored on the client. A “cookie” is information about a client that is provided by the client to a particular network site when requesting a service from the particular network site. Conventional networking protocols allow for servers to cause such cookies to be stored on the client. When a client subsequently makes a request for a service, the client automatically provides the cookie to the server so as to aid the server in customizing service.
Each cookie is specific to a particular server. When accessing a Web site, only the cookie(s) associated with that Web site are provided to the Web site. This is desirable from a security perspective since it prevents renegade Web sites from accessing information about the user that the user did not wish to share with that renegade Web site. One drawback of this, however, is that every time a user visits a Web site that does not have an associated cookie stored on the client, the user might need to re-enter information for the new Web site. This can be quite cumbersome for the user, especially in situations where the security concerns behind automatically providing information to the new Web site do not outweigh the convenience for the user in foregoing the need to manually enter information.
For example, the new Web site could be affiliated with a Web site with whom the user has already chosen to share information. Suppose that a user desires to purchase a book but also give special shipping instructions to the shipper. The user had previously navigated to an on-line bookstore and entered relevant information which is now stored on the client in the form of a cookie. Now, upon navigating to the same on-line bookstore Web site, the user does not need to enter the information since the cookie is provided to the on-line bookstore Web site.
The user now desires to enter special shipping instructions and thus selects a link entitled “Special Shipping Instructions” which navigates the user to a shipping Web site managed by a shipping company that handles all of the on-line bookstore shipments. Assuming that this is the user's first visit to the shipping Web site, the user would be required to re-enter much of the same information even though the shipping Web site is affiliated with the on-line bookstore and is subject to the same duty of confidentiality as the on-line bookstore.
In light of the prior art, it would therefore, be advantageous to provide systems and methods for providing client information to Web sites for which there is no corresponding cookie. It would further be advantageous to provide such client information without burdening the user with entering such client information.